The Field of Eurocracy: Mapping EU Actors and Professionals

The term 'Eurocracy' is a word that exists in all European languages. Yet beyond fantasized representations of the 'Brussels bubble', we know little about members of the European Parliament, Commissioners, European civil servants, lobbyists, members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, European trade unionists, diplomats and journalists who work in or around the EU institutions? What are their social and professional trajectories, the type of authority they possess, and how does it matter?

Based on extensive fieldwork, this volume aims at answering these questions by building upon Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of bureaucracy. 45 years after Altiero Spinelli's 'The Eurocrats'.

Contents:

+ Introduction: Studying Eurocracy as a Bureaucratic Field

+ 1. MEPs: Towards a Specialization of European Political Work?

+ 2. Tensions Within Eurocracy: A Socio-Morphological Perspective

+ 3. The Permanent Representatives to the EU: Going Native in the European Field

+ 4. ECB Leaders: a New European Monetary Elite?

+ 5. The World of European Information: The Institutional and Relational Genesis of the EU Public Sphere

+ 6. Expert Groups in the Field of Eurocracy

+ 7. Interest Groups and Lobbyists in the European Political Space: The Permanent Eurocrats

+ 8. The Personnel of the European Trade Union Confederation: Specifically European Types of Capital?

+ 9. European Business Leaders: A Focus on the Upper Layers of the European Field Power

+ Conclusion: The Field of Eurocracy: A New Map for New Research Horizons